"I was standing at the edge of one of the waterfalls," he continued, his voice now softer, almost as if he were reliving each mont with his feet still damp from mory.
"I felt the cold wind blowing against my face... birds cutting across the sky above. I have no doubt it was a cloudy day. There was a steady drizzle in the air, the kind that doesn’t really soak you, but makes your soul feel heavier."
I closed my eyes for a second, trying to picture the scene with the sa level of detail he described. It was ironic. He couldn’t see it, yet he seed to perceive more than anyone else ever could.
"I only thought... I prayed, that the fall would be quick. And that the end would be painless."
His voice wavered for just a fraction of a second. But unlike most, Silas didn’t avoid his scars—he narrated them. They were part of his flesh.
"But... before I took that final step... sothing grabbed my right shoulder. A hand, a claw, I don’t know. It was warm, light, steady."
He paused. Smiled.
"And then... a voice. A voice as gentle as a mother’s, asking if I was lost."
I frowned. It was impossible not to get lost in that image.
"It was funny, actually," he let out a brief laugh, bitter but honest. "That voice startled so much I slipped."
I let out a surprised breath. He shrugged.
"Yes. I fell. For real. Slipped like an idiot and dropped... maybe ten ters. In the end, the waterfall I’d chosen was tiny, hahaha!!"
He laughed harder now, almost as if it had happened yesterday.
My throat tightened. I swallowed.
"That voice... was it Ar?"
He slowly turned his face toward , wearing that enigmatic smile that seed to have been taught by the gods themselves.
"Yes. The very sa. Ar... has many ways of manifesting. Sotis it’s just a breeze, other tis a singing tree... or a mother. That day, it was that. And, well... as you can imagine, my pathetic attempt at dying turned into a stumble worthy of a tavern tale. All because a little bird landed on my shoulder and startled ."
I shook my head, unsure whether to laugh or mourn. He went on:
"But... that day, I gained a tutor. No, more than that... I gained a guide."
His tone grew calr, more reverent.
"As blind as I was. But seeing everything I wished I could see."
There was such a deep truth in that sentence that for a mont the world seed to stop. Only the breath of the mountains could be heard.
"Ar taught that losing one sense... is terrible, of course. But having four senses sharpened beyond asure... that’s a gift. Sight isn’t everything about the world. In fact," he paused, "sight can be treacherous. It deceives the heart, scrambles the mind. To rely purely on vision... is to be blind without knowing it."
I let the words sink in. Then I asked, curious:
"Was that when you learned how to... move around? However it is you do that nowadays?"
Silas let out a dry laugh, dripping with irony.
"Oh, no, no! That only ca when I broke through to Master Rank. Until then... I truly lived as a blind man, though with supernatural reflexes. Dependent on others. Dependent on sound, sll, touch, intuition."
He lifted his face to the sky, where the clouds began to part, revealing rays of sunlight cutting through in dramatic streaks.
"But Ar taught that there are many ways to live. Many ways to fight. To be useful. To transform what you have... into what you can beco."
He turned slightly toward and touched his own nose in a theatrical gesture, but one heavy with aning.
"And I happen to have talent with this. A sharp nose. Sensitive senses."
He opened his arms as if presenting the answer to so ancient riddle.
"That’s why I beca an alchemist."
I smiled. A silent, grateful smile.
Because now, at last, I understood.
And there was sothing deeply magical in realizing that the grumpy, stubborn, sarcastic old man... was, in truth, a survivor of a formless world, who had learned to shape it with what remained to him.
Silas drew in a slow breath through his nose, as if savoring the icy scent of the mountains before speaking. His voice, this ti, ca lighter. Almost serene.
"I found a world that... honestly, I never thought could exist."
A genuine smile spread across his face, and he gestured with his hands as if sketching mories in the air.
"In natural materials... in potions, in the handling of rare plants... it was as if every aroma, every texture, every living particle of nature whispered secrets that no one else could hear. It was as if it had all just been... waiting for soone blind enough to listen with the heart."
He laughed. A free laugh, filled with truth.
"Funny, isn’t it? All the things we ca chasing in this reckless adventure... mystical stones, herbs that glow at night, roots that sing, a golden reed—I lived surrounded by all that for years."
He fell into a long pause. As if ditating on what he was about to say.
"And now, here’s my advice to you, boy."
I tensed without aning to, as if preparing for both a punch and an embrace at once.
"After ten years living in the Valley of the Floating Waterfalls... I returned ho."
He looked straight ahead, as if glimpsing a past hidden within the mists of the present.
"And as you can imagine... I ca back with every fear and doubt possible.
Would they accept back?
Would they still rember ?
Would I be just another stranger with the sa blood?
Would they forgive ? Would I even be able to forgive them?
Would they be ashad of ?"
The cadence of those ’woulds’ sounded like the beat of a funeral drum.
"But... surprisingly..." and his voice trembled slightly, in a beautiful way, "my parents embraced . And they cried. They cried for a very, very long ti."
He smiled with teary eyes. There was no sha in it. Only pride.
"And that’s it, Glenn. In the end... value those who truly love you. That makes all the difference. More than power, more than status. More than the approval of others. Genuine love... is both anchor and sail at the sa ti."
Silence. The wind blew harder.
"Logically," he shifted back into sarcasm, wiping a tear with his fingers, "after all the drama and crying, I had to demand answers, right?
’Why didn’t you look for ?
Why didn’t anyone from the family co after ?
Why did you leave alone in that wretched forest?’"
He let out a cynical laugh.
"Poor little . I heard myself and felt disgusted."
Then his voice dropped lower.
"That’s when my father said sothing that maybe... turned into who I am today."
He paused for a long mont, then repeated the words with almost ceremonial weight:
’If he doesn’t find his own path, no one will ever find it for him.
And a father’s role is, many tis, to trust that his children are capable of finding that path.’
The silence was absolute.
"He was right. Completely right."
He looked at with a sober expression, steadier than all the ones before.
"Yes, I went back ho. But not as a hero. Not as a failure either. I went back as soone who laid down his own track. I beca an alchemist of a secondary branch of the family. Developed my own cultivation techniques. And walked a path that could exist... only for ."
I couldn’t speak imdiately. Sothing in that story—in the implied courage, in the pain swallowed dry, in the laughter found at the bottom of the abyss—struck like a perfect arrow.
Maybe all of us, at so point, are a little like Silas: falling from the waterfall, waiting for the end... only to discover that it was actually the beginning. Or falling from one world into another, inside the body of soone condemned to death and a ruined family, only to beco the consort of soone so powerful she could crush with a single thought.
And then being hunted by everyone who desires that person, and more besides.
Silas adjusted himself in the saddle, stretching his shoulders with a soft crack of the joints. The sky behind us was already painting the clouds in bluish strokes. His voice ca calm, almost conspiratorial:
"And of course... I didn’t choose the valley we were in by chance."
I turned my head slightly, curious at the tone he used. As if confessing to so decades-old mischief.
"Ti passed, Glenn. And like in every family, we had... conflicts. So big, others inevitable."
He laughed, a dry, low sound, without bitterness—just acceptance.
"In the last of those conflicts, I was ’invited’ not to return. Forbidden, actually. For a few good decades."
I frowned.
"But then cos the fun part... Ti passed, and that ’invitation’ turned out, surprisingly, to be very good."
He shot a half-smile.
"I missed that wonderful place. That sll of moss and mist, the mystical vibration that only that valley has. And also... knowing how curious my guide is—better known as Ar, the Oracle..."
Silas raised an eyebrow.
"I was absolutely certain that a demon with three affinities, causing destruction and magical chaos across every corner of the valley, would catch her attention."
I let out a faint breath.
"So that’s why you told to... steal all those rare ingredients?"
This ti he burst out laughing, the sound echoing against the stones of the trail we were climbing.
"Yes! Of course it was. What kind of alchemist do you think I am? It’s been fifty years since I last restocked from that place. You have no idea how hard it is to get good materials like the ones born in that valley, outside of that specific ecosystem."
He shook his head with mock indignation.
"But more important than all of that, boy... I honestly hoped you would learn sothing from the noise of your own affinities."
He leaned forward slightly in the saddle, eyes fixed on the horizon as if searching for the mory of his own initiation.
"That was the very first thing Ar taught ."
Silence. Only the sound of the sleipnir’s hooves on frozen stones and the cold winds rising as we climbed the slope.
"When we carry multiple natures... multiple elents flowing through our veins... it’s easy to let the entire world turn into noise. Each affinity screaming, pulling you in a different direction. Each energy demanding attention like a spoiled child. And if you don’t learn to listen to that noise... and then, to silence it... you’ll end up lost inside yourself."
He pressed two fingers against his chest.
"Controlling energy is easy, Glenn. But quieting the voices inside you? That... is where true mastery lives."
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